This year's Oscars telecast "will be the most diverse ever", producer David Hill said at the annual Oscars nominee luncheon on Monday (February 8), adding that the show "will represent what the world looks like", reports variety.com.

The Academy has already announced an inclusive lineup of presenters for the show, including Indian actors Priyanka Chopra and Hollywood celebrities Quincy Jones, Byung-hun Lee, Kerry Washington, Olivia Munn, Whoopi Goldberg, Benicio del Toro, and Kevin Hart. Chris Rock is hosting the event.

Since nominations were announced last month, Twitterati revived the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.

Actors such as Jada Pinkett Smith and director Spike Lee criticised the Academy after the Oscars nomination list was out.

"How Is It Possible For The 2nd Consecutive Year All 20 Contenders Under The Actor Category Are White? And Let's Not Even Get Into The Other Branches (sic)," Lee wrote under the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag.

"40 White Actors In 2 Years And No Flava At All. We Can't Act?! (sic)" added Lee, who was awarded an honorary Oscar in November last year.

Along with director Spike Lee, Jada Pinkett Smith shared a video on Facebook stating that she would skip the February 28 ceremony.

"Maybe it's time we pull back our resources and we put them back into our communities, and we make programmes for ourselves that acknowledge us in ways that we see fit, that are just as good as the so-called mainstream," she said in a video on Facebook.